Nightmares
by Meatball42
Summary: The team's in trouble, and it's up to Alec to save them. Will his computer skills be enough?
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: I know absolutely nothing about World of Warcraft, so all mistakes are entirely mine. Also, this is one of the stranger fics I've written, so bear with me, it'll make sense in a bit.**

**Minor spoilers for the 12-Step Job and the Fairy Godparents Job, bigger spoilers for the Bank Job, and if you haven't seen the Bank Job when you read this, you're gonna be a bit confused.**

[*]

Alec typed frantically. Staring at his laptop's screen in horror, his fingers missed half the keys, and precious seconds were spent hitting backspace and retyping. Seconds that Nate and Sophie didn't have.

Alec was standing outside the bank, his laptop balanced on a car. On the window that filled most of his screen, Judge Roy was sauntering across the floor of the bank toward Alec's two team members. Sophie was cradling Nat's head in her lap, a look of horror and pain on her face as she whispered to him desperately. Nate didn't hear her. His eyes were glazed as he stared blankly at the man who'd shot him, but didn't really see him. He'd been bleeding too long. Alec's eyes flicked to the huge pool of blood that surrounded him (was it _still_ getting bigger?) from the wound in his chest.

The hacker forced himself to concentrate on the program he was using to change the video. If he backed it up a few minutes, he could change it so that Nate had never been shot. He could save his leader, the man who'd given him a family and finally solved his focus issues. The small part of Alec's mind that retained his sarcasm mumbled through the frenzied haze that was enveloping the rest of his brain: 'He's certainly not helping you concentrate now!'

That voice was right; Alec had to stop looking at the pain on Nate's face, the tears dripping from Sophie's cheeks, and focus on the tape! He could fix this, he could save them…

"Hardison!" Alec jumped, his fingers leaving the keyboard for a second before he realized he'd stopped typing. He resumed his anxious keystrokes, but that southern drawl called his name again, pulling the hacker's face to the screen despite his need to watch his fingers.

"You can't win," that voice said. It was far too relaxed, taunting him. Alec forced his fingers to go faster, manipulating his video program and typing line upon line of new code. Still, that voice made him look at the screen, and he froze for another instant when he saw the judge looking directly into the security camera.

"You think you can really stop me?" The judge teased. "You think your little computer program can stop a man with a gun?" He turned back to Nate and Sophie, who was now whimpering as she tried to keep Nate from going into shock.

Alec let out huge breath he didn't know he'd kept inside. His lungs ached, but he was smiling in hope as he hit the enter key. His program was finished. He'd told it to erase the last few minutes of video and programmed in new clips, film where the bullet had missed Nate altogether and the team was safe.

The screen fuzzed over for a minute as Alec had expected, then came back. Alec gaped at the screen, the images so different than what his program should have created. Judge Roy was still standing over Alec's teammates, but now Nate was conscious, leaning against Sophie. They were both staring up at the judge in twin expressions of fear. Judge Roy looked over his shoulder at the camera.

"You're useless. You couldn't protect your team." The Judge grinned evilly, and turned to the helpless figures on the floor. He raised his gun, and two shots echoed in Alec's ears as he said his final words. "This is your fault."

…

Tears were leaking down Alec's face, but he had to keep typing. He looked up constantly at his two teammates, bound to chairs by leather ties just as he was. Unlike Eliot and Parker, Alec's hands were free. He typed anxiously, trying not to flinch every time a blow landed on one of his friends.

The nameless, faceless enemy was hitting Alec's teammates with a weapon that changed every time the hacker looked up from his monitor. He sat in a metal chair at a metal desk, the only furniture in the dark warehouse besides the chairs his friends were tied to in a circle of bright light, the only illumination.

Alec was fighting the trolls on the monitor as hard as he could, employing every weapon and spell he could think of, but the bar above his character's head was getting steadily redder. Every time that blood-colored bar inched closer to the right side, another blow landed on Eliot or Parker.

Alec tried to close his mind. Watching that man punch Parker in the gut or slice yet another cut on Eliot's shoulder wouldn't help him concentrate on the fight. 'Why did I ever think World of Warcraft was fun?' He asked himself, flinching as a baton came down on the blonde thief's knee, causing her to shriek.

Eliot was yelling at the man, trying to draw the blows away from Parker. It worked: as the trolls attacked Alec's character in a wave, the man rained blows down on Eliot with the baton, turning unexpectedly to catch a gasping Parker across the back with a loud crack. Hardison fought frantically, his fingers flying across the keyboard, and tried not to watch Eliot biting through his lip to keep from crying out, or Parker's eyes focusing on something in the distance as she attempted to ignore the pain.

Alec started yelling when he saw that there were only a few measures of green left on the bar above his character's head that measured health. "Stop! There's nothing I can do, there's too many of them!" He shouted at the man as he desperately tried to defend his character from the seven or eight trolls who were about to kill it. He looked up and saw that the man was beating his teammates even harder now. Tears were streaming down Parker's face in waves, and her mouth was open in a silent cry that horrified Alec more than when she had cried out. Eliot's eyes were closed, but the grimace on his face was filled with pain beyond that which he could express in a scream.

Alec looked at his monitor, knowing before his eyes focused what he would see. His character had fallen to the ground, the bar completely red. His eyes slid slowly above the monitor to the scene behind the desk, which had become suddenly still.

"Don't hurt them," Alec whispered, eyes fixed on the back of the man. The man raised his arm suddenly, and Alec gasped when he saw the long dagger in his hand. The hacker tore at the straps that bound him to the chair to no avail, and could only watch in horror as the man plunged the knife into Eliot's chest.

[*]

"Hardison!"

Alec grabbed at his legs, trying to tear of the leather straps. Instead, his hands met fabric, which he ripped away. He sat up, breathing hard, his mind still filled with the last image he could remember: a pair of shining blue eyes which stared into his own while their owner was stabbed.

Alec tore at the sheet which covered his lower body frantically, his random pulls succeeding only in tangling the fabric even more. He was flailing desperately, about to shout in fear, when strong hands grabbed his shoulders and pushed him flat. Alec scrabbled at the hands uselessly, gasping for breath.

"Hardison! Calm down!" Alec stopped his thrashing for an instant and looked up. His gaze was met by blue eyes, terrible in their familiarity. Those eyes were the exact pair that, even now, was in his mind, filled with blame, _pain_, and worst of all, acceptance. Hardison couldn't move, staring up in a mixture of fear and confusion at the man who he'd just watched die.

"You had a nightmare, Hardison," Eliot said gruffly. His voice sounded annoyed, but his expression was concerned, and, if Alec was completely honest, caring. For another moment Alec stared, then he raised his hands to Eliot's chest, half expecting to feel the hilt of a knife.

Eliot grasped his arms, stopping the movement. "What are you doing?" The hitter asked, glaring down at his teammate.

Alec was still gaping. "You're alright?" He managed to breath. "You're not…" He trailed off, unable or unwilling to finish his question.

Eliot let go of the hacker's arms, his eyes filled with understanding. "I'm fine," he promised, stepping backwards to sit down.

Alec looked at his surroundings. No more street in Juan, with police officers and vehicles and sand. No more dark warehouse, with… No more dark warehouse. He was sitting up in a bed made small enough for one person, in a white-washed room that looked like it had seen better days. The meager light from the lamp next to Alec's bed lit up a small room with a pale carpet that seemed like it had once been red. The room was empty except for Alec's bed, the identical bed Eliot was sitting on, and the bedside table between them.

Alec took several deep breaths, remembering where he was. The team had just finished a job in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and was spending the night at some run-down motel before heading back to Nate's apartment in Boston. He looked to Eliot on the bed opposite him. The long-haired man was giving him a neutral gaze, waiting for Alec to say something.

"I'm sorry 'bout that," Alec said, managing to laugh a bit and motioning around, trying to encompass what had just happened. "Just a nightmare, you know?" He laughed a bit more, and sounded hysterical even to himself. Eliot continued to watch him, saying nothing, and the hacker continued.

"Just a computer thing, you wouldn't understand it." That sounded desperate even to his ears, but hopefully it would make Eliot go back to sleep, or look away. Anything so he could stop looking into those blue eyes, which brought back his visions every time he saw them.

"You talk in your sleep." Eliot said quietly. His face was still blank, and he seemed to be trying to deliver the news as neutrally as possible.

Alec stared as the crumpled sheets in front of him. After a few moments he convinced himself to speak. "It was Juan." He whispered. "And… I don't know where else, but…there was nothing I could do." Alec looked at Eliot, pleading for him to understand that he had tried to save their team; he'd tried as hard as he could.

Eliot nodded slowly, and Alec stared at the sheets again until the retrieval specialist spoke. "You wanna see them?" Eliot asked, his gravelly voice strangely kind. Alec looked up. Eliot's expression was understanding, and he gave a half smile at the hacker's questioning look. "Sometimes it helps."

Alec nodded. "Yeah," he said, ignoring how shaky his voice was, and stood up on legs that were equally unsteady. Eliot tossed him a key from the bedside table; Alec fumbled, but caught it. He opened the door to the room and walked out into the dark hallway.

The next door on the right was Alec's destination. He slid the key into the look as quietly as he could, not wanting to startle anyone inside. He opened the door slowly and poked his head inside.

There were Nate and Sophie, resolutely on opposite sides of the same king-size bed. They were playing a married couple at this hotel, but both made the part infinitely more difficult than it had to be, as Alec himself had pointed out earlier that day. No, yesterday. Alec checked the display of his watch, easy to read by the moonlight from the window in the hallway. It was just past four in the morning. Alec looked back inside the room, this time at the opposite wall. There was Parker, curled up in a tight ball on the couch, playing her part as Sophie's niece. Alec took the time to examine them all closely.

Nate was turned toward the door, the undershirt he wore to bed a clean white, with no hint of the crimson blood from Alec's dream. His face was smoothed out by sleep, not showing any of the worry lines that Alec usually saw on a job. The effect made him look years younger, and much more peaceful. Alec sighed in relief at the lack of a bullet hole in the leader's chest.

Sophie was facing Nate, on the far side of the bed, so Alec could see her face as well. Whatever she saw in her sleep was better than Alec's dream, and she smiled slightly. Her hair was mussed, something Alec had never seen before. In Alec's nightmare, she'd had tear-tracks running down her face, outlined in mascara, and her lipstick and eyeliner were smudged. Now she wasn't wearing any make-up, another new sight. She looked content, and a weight lifted from Alec's heart.

Parker was tucked into the gap of the couch between the part that most people ('Normal people,' the witty part of Alec's mind snarked) sat on and the part they leaned back on. She appeared comfortable, but Alec still flinched looking at her face. He remembered her screaming in pain, eyes begging for Alec to work faster, to save her. He remembered her eyes as she drifted away, floating past the pain, and he blinked several times to clear his mind of the images. Instead he focused on her breath. It was soft and even, and he could distinguish it from Nate's and Sophie's because it was higher-pitched, just like her voice. Alec calmed as he listened to it. She was safe, his team was safe. It was just a nightmare. Alec closed and locked the door quietly.

"You're useless. You couldn't protect your team." Judge Roy's voice came back to his mind. Was that right? Was Alec really useless to protect his family? The hacker leaned against the wall, closing his eyes.

Nate had said it would be a good idea for the team to room together, just in case somebody they'd gotten into trouble in Baton Rouge figured out where they were, but Alec wished that he could've had a room to himself. He didn't want to see Eliot now, and know that the hitter might someday die because of him. Alec sighed, and slipped back into his and Eliot's room, hoping that the other man had gone back to sleep.

Eliot was lying in his bed, but he wasn't asleep. He looked up when Alec came in, scrutinizing the hacker's expression, before settling back down. Alec leaned back against the headboard of his own bed, and there were a few moments of silence before Eliot spoke.

"You wanna talk about it?"

Alec considered. On one hand, he didn't want Eliot to know he'd been scared by a nightmare. Alec had done his research, and he knew that the older man had many more things, real things, to be scared of then Alec's dreams. Alec looked up to the hitter and part of him didn't want to lose face.

On the other hand, maybe Eliot would understand the most. He certainly couldn't tell Sophie, who would want him to over-analyze everything and talk about his feelings, or Parker, who would… Alec didn't even want to consider how Parker would act, but he guessed it wouldn't make him feel better. He could talk to Nate, but he would probably try to assure the hacker that nothing like his dream would ever happen, and Alec knew it could. Eliot would be honest.

"Judge Roy shot Nate and Sophie. I was tryin' to stop it, but my computer wouldn't work. Then…" He paused for a moment, then continued, looking away from the other man. "Somebody was hurting you and Parker." Alec faltered, stuttering, as he forced the pictures from his brain. "I tried to stop it, but I couldn't!" He looked back at Eliot, his eyes swimming despite his attempts to stop it. "There was nothing I could do." He finished miserably.

"And the worst part?" Alec asked ironically. "It could happen, man. I could be the death of y'all. I can't fight like you, I ain't tricky as Parker, and I can _not_ talk my way out of things like Sophie and Nate. I really am useless." He banged his head softly on the headboard, breathing unevenly after his emotional words. For a while, the only sound was Alec trying to catch his breath.

"We were trailing that addict, Jack Hurley, an' you fought those Mexicans pretty well." Eliot stated.

"I shot a man's car instead of his leg!" Alec protested. "That don't count as a good thing!"

"You rappelled down the side of a building and searched Fowler's apartment," the hitter continued as thought he hadn't interrupted.

"I slammed into the side of the daggum window!" Alec exclaimed angrily. "I got all the cables all tangled in a knot! I woulda blown the alarms too if Parker hadn't told me what to do!"

"And you saved Nate and Sophie in Juan." Eliot finished. When the hacker didn't respond, he continued. "You tricked the cops and the judge, you made the video that made him look guilty, an' you held him off long enough to be arrested, all without Nate tellin' you what to do." Eliot turned over so he could look at Alec straight. "You saved their lives."

Alec didn't say anything. He held Eliot's gaze until the older man turned back toward the wall. "And you're not useless," he heard Eliot say quietly.

Alec lay down and tried to get comfortable, thinking about what Eliot had said. Was it true?

After a few minutes the hacker was smiling slightly as he drifted off to sleep.

[*]

**This one got away from me! I thought this was going to be really short, but it ended up like this! Tell me what you think! **


	2. Read this too!

**This isn't a new chapter, but read it anyway! Sunbird Riding Shotgun, the awesome author of the entire 'Cell Number Eight' universe, got a plot bunny from a line in this fic and it turned out wicked awesome. So if you liked this, go to http://www [dot] fanfiction [dot] net/s/5319778/4/Black_Knight_Castled_King**

**This link goes to the fourth chapter of the story Black Knight, Castled King. The bit related to Nightmares starts at chapter four, but it's the whole thing is a wonderful story, all of the stories in this particular vein are, in fact, but you don't need to read them to understand the sequel-type thing. Anyway, the sequel-ishy part is on chapters 4-9. I love them, and I'm sure you will to!**


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